


Carpe Diem

by infernoforte



Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Bartenders, M/M, Serial Killer, Two Shot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:28:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26712217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infernoforte/pseuds/infernoforte
Summary: Young K is a killer, a psychopath. Jae falls head over heels for him.
Relationships: Kang Younghyun | Young K/Park Jaehyung | Jae
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Carpe Diem

**Author's Note:**

  * For [changdictator](https://archiveofourown.org/users/changdictator/gifts).



> Hello readers! Enters the newest, most recent bullshit from the tips of my fingers, I have to say it's really been a long while since the last time I've written. Upcoming is my self-explanatory elaboration on why I have gone on hiatus for almost two years. 2019 has been very roughly brutal to the tip of my nose, I was practically drowning in emotional and physical distress, regardless of the fresh, vivid ideas for fictions lurking in my mind. When 2019 bid me goodbye, I began a busy year at college, soaking in wonderful knowledge and meeting equally wonderful people. I'm adamant to continue writing as a hobby and even more so when the pandemic knocked everyone off guard, these fictions I'm posting up, are the ones that have stayed drafted for longer than I can remember. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Also a note to Changie, if you ever notice me tagging you here:  
> Don't get freaked out if you've never seen me anywhere! I just really want to thank you for all the fics you've written, you're my major inspiration and the most I can find. I do hope you can enjoy and see what you have brought me that I'm still so thankful of, despite it's not from a fandom you might be familiar with.

It started off as Younghyun, plucking his bass and singing to deafing background music at the bar, throwing up alcohol and bile and blood and drugs and tears and basically everything every once he's back home.

-

Chicago's weather is the usual, tic tacky humidity Jae would never grow to be fond of. The worst part is the congested clouds, the long, ghostly and ghastly shadows lingering upon the avenue, it really hurts nothing more but the sight. Damned Sunday morning, he thinks. The impending storm shows no sign of subsiding, yet his drafts and filthy paper and pastel yet seemingly monochromatic post-it notes are flitted and somewhat torn. Somewhat like his own current self. 

To Park Jaehyung, things are different in a typical Sunday morning, it just is. It's the kind of day the stranger next door stops banging violently and desperately on his door, begging for sentiment or conscience or anything else-Jae cannot vividly recall, also from whom he doesn't actually know of-begging for mercy from his electrical password door lock (why it wouldn't budge, in truth he has always been at the wrong door), something about why the world doesn't contemplate on setting him free whatsoever. The stranger has always smoked, then drank. He's always slamming his walls, his concrete walls.

At one point, they end up in the same elevator some recollectable time before. The stranger was staring hard into Jae's eyes, inching his gaze little by little, from above to below at him. Then he spoke, "I'm Young K. Singer at the bar downstairs, have a drink there sometime, my treat."

By the time Jae stops pacing in his own trance, the stranger has already stepped out of the elevator, leaving Jae and his sinking guitar case beside his knees.

-

Strangely, Jae does end up in the very bar after his Wednesday shift later that week, his pupils dilated against the reflection of the person named Young K at the mirror behind the counter, cloaked in iridescent lamps of tense artificiality. Yet strangely, Young K seems to be a lot jocose since the last time Jae sees him, his soft lips prepped in a rosy tinge, hair jet black and steady beneath the chromatic lights. "Hi, nerd."

Jae's eyebrows almost immediately connect into a reluctant, straight line. "I'm not a nerd, Young K."

Though Young K's features soften, smiling into his glass of whiskey. The police sirens outside seems to be howling in a high pitch now, Jae isn't sure if that really is the case, or is his ears ringing and the low hum of electric guitars are vehemently slashing at his veins. The pound is deafing, as well as calming in the bar. Maybe Young K enjoys it as well as he does, maybe he isn't just the stranger that he never comes to understand or even know, maybe he doesn't drown in alcohols just for the sake of his work but for the state of his mind.

To Jae, the kind of music Young K plays is the gradual crumbling, diffusing and suffocating throb at his head. It is the imminent hover of shadows playing at the backdrop of a broken opera, with broken chords and broken strums. The swift crescendos and the falling diminuendos, the brief swishes and the long swooshes, the twists and turns of the time signatures. It is like a one-man concert, with people half awake, half dead as his audiences. 

When Young K finally steps off the abraded stage, halting his somewhat torturous, magnifying horror of songs, Jae leans forward at the counter only to catch a closer demeanor of the ghost that Young K is. He then shakes his glass of champagne, still frizzy in the cold, and simply shakes his head. "That's distressful."

To which Young K's lips make a turn of amusement, confusion or both. "What is?"

"The entire mood you have play the guitar into, it's horrid."

Then Young K is laughing, or he seems to be, throwing back his head and letting the laughter and oxygen and smoke leave his lungs in a yank of tears from the corners of his eyes. He takes a deep inhale of his newly lit cigarette, swallowing a mouthful of toxin before eyeing Jae somehow obnoxiously. "This is what I do, as a fucking useless tosser."

"You're not."

"You don't even know me, nerd."

"And I'm not even a nerd, I'm Park Jaehyung."

The night limps away with the occasional scoffs that Young K offers, the uncertain flicker of low ceiling lamps, the continuous howl of police sirens. Things feel upright for a moment and sinks for the next, almost like an obliterated drag of compulsion, violently forceful but sweetly oblivious.

-  


Months later, Jae manages to get a shift at the bar downstairs where Young K works in. Apart from constantly being bugged by the fact that Young K is adamant that Jae signs up all because of him, and his beauty, he still finds it quite within convenience to work near home, and near someone he seems to actually know.

The day begins with the hodgepodges lurking around the local newspapers, them spilled with coffee and torn at the edges, a vast bustling city with skyscrapers climbing up and stretching across the geography so wide that you cant see the ends of their backs. News, swirling and slashing across every syllables by the pedestrians to each other. News, cascading down from the huge TV to the thousands of weak gazes down on the avenue. There comes the news of a downtown bar, where the second murder of the month has already happened.

"The FBI is on the move for further investigation on this case of unfortunate homicide, meanwhile we urge the citizens of Chicago to refrain from panicking, police patrols are to set up across the street for the upcoming weeks to ensure the peoples safety." The television broadcast continues, amongst the crowd, Jae has pulled his glasses off, intending to wipe the vapor caused by the cold, he isn't sure if the more brutal danger is the serial killer himself or the cold, he wonders if the killer does survive in the cold.

Shrugging off the thought, his eyes close and they open a little to look at the sinking sun-it is, as expected, buried in the orange, congested clouds that he always imagines catching-he looks away.

To him, it isn't anything particularly strange to have psychopaths anywhere they are found, so it isn't too surprising for him to discover that his next shift is at the very place where the murders were committed earlier in the month. His rental is due, upon being disemployed he still has to earn a living, and its not too harsh to say what a win-win situation it is to choose between being killed and he doesn't have to deal with his living, or being able to earn money without being killed.

-

The bar is emptier that night the serial killer is on the run, frankly, its a Wednesday night. A few ghastly shadows creep along the thin, abraded walls drowning in monochromatic smoke and chromatic lights, soaking all the punch of life and regurgitating merely a void of time. Jae arranges the glasses on the bar, checks the bills, listens to the half-croaking, half-trembling voice from the singer at the small stage metres away from the counter, and he repeats.

It isn't until the only singers croak of a voice meshes with, and gets replaced by a clear, vaguely familiar whisper. "Hey."

Above his seat, a charmingly decorated man probably in his twenties stands, smiling. A gush of novelty whooshes by as Jae examines his features one blink at a time, he figures if this really is the weird colleague everyone else is talking about at the corridors, just as fine and extravagant that he stands out so well in front of dull bottles of wine, vodka and otherwise.

“Hi.” The person coughs, his voice is fresh, nothing Jae has ever heard, but still familiar enough to allow him recognize who it is. "Nerd, I really do love your eyes."

"I don't suppose people like you have a fetish of flirting with people you barely know, but okay, I'm taking that as a compliment." Jae snorts.

With that, Young K's smile grows brighter, Jae describes it as something that brings the butterflies to the highest of his stomach and gets stuck there, very seductive with a grasp of horror.

Later that night, when the janitor and the (croak of a voice) singer bide their shift good night, only the two of them are in the bar. Young K sits on the low, mediocre stage with mediocre guitars, proceeding on to play a tune of catatonic, but soothing strums. Any imperfections has gone perfect under Young K's fingers, the rampant crescendos, the falling diminuendos, anything besides the control of Young K is a mess.

The night paces on silently, and so softly that no one notices it even for the slightest. The only recollection Jae has is the sound of the metal grate swinging so hard on the frame that he is startled, Young K sparing a low chortle beside him.


End file.
